Some Thoughts on Terminology

Having known you for about 16 years, I'm guessing -- and I could be wrong -- that you already told the kids that I am getting a job at the U of I.

This, of course, is in response to your text about details.

It made me think of terminology.

I texted back saying I was just giving you a "heads up." But I didn't make that explicit when I told you my news on the phone. I sort of thought it would be understood, coming so quickly after the phone call, but it wasn't clearly stated as just 'some info for you' so maybe you took it as a done deal and excitedly told the kids, then started thinking about the details and ramifications.

Am I right?

It also made me remember a similar situation about 16 years ago, regarding our 'engagement' debacle. Simply put, I didn't have the terminology at that time to correctly describe our process. When we talked on the phone about getting married, and you said, well, you haven't asked, so I said, well, will you marry me? and you said yes. Then I thought, wow, so we must be engaged now. And said we were 'engaged' for lack of a better phrase.

Reflecting back on that, I realize that that is when people say, 'our relationship is at the point where we are talking about marriage and planning on getting married.' That's where we were, but we were not engaged until there was a proposal with a ring and a date set pretty soon afterward.

I realize these things now.

So with the job, I have been given a verbal job offer, and verbally said yes, I'd like to take it. Now, Mr. Lotz will compose a job offer for me to review, I will get it, read it, probably accept it, then the process will continue to move forward.

But I don't really have a job at the U of I yet. I assumed you would do all this 'mental gymnastics' yourself and reach the same conclusion I have about the stage of this job-getting process, but that is a big assumption to make of anyone, and I should be more clear in my communications.

So, I just wanted to share these thoughts, observations, speculations and conclusions with you, to keep our lines of communication open and hopefully improving.

Greg Purnell